New Jersey Apologizes

The state of New Jersey has apologized for slavery despite Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll’s thoughts, Democratic Assemblyman Bill Payne feels the apology was necessary:

Lawmakers voted on Monday for a resolution expressing “profound regret” for the enslavement of up to 12,000 blacks before the Civil War. Assemblyman Bill Payne, a Democrat who sponsored the measure, said it would help to address modern problems such as unequal access to housing and education that he said were the remnants of slavery.

“Many of the social problems we have in this country are directly related to the fact that this country was involved in slavery.”

Bossip caught up with Assemblyman Carroll after the post last week and a summary of his long-winded response is under the hood…

In response to Black Americans suffering from a disconnection to their roots, he stated:

“NONSENSE. Those people who are here, from wherever they came and under whatever circumstances, are INFINITELY better off than the folks that were left behind, wherever that BEHIND might be. ”

To a statement that living in the States – especially in a ghetto, is not automatically better than living in Africa, he replied:

“Any one who shares that view is welcome to leave… let them shake the dust of this land they abhor from their feet and emigrate. I assure you, they will not be missed.”

He threw in these fun facts:

“71% of black kids are now born out of wedlock. If “centuries” of ill treatment were to blame,why did that circumstance not arise centuries ago? As of 1960, only about 20% of black births were out of wedlock. Given that single parenthood is the single greatest predictor of poverty, why did that number consistently rise at precisely the time during which (official) discrimination and prejudice were being successfully fought?”

In response to blacks being proud to be African he wrote:

“WHY are you proud of something you can’t control, had nothing to do with, and is a mere accident of birth? My own heritage is (mostly) Irish — as near as I can tell, never having bothered to study it. “